May 29, 2020: A former Labour Court judge has filed a petition in the Supreme Court to rename the Bombay High Court as Maharashtra High Court.
VP Patil, former Principal Judge, Labour Court Mumbai, in his petition said that since High Courts are generally named after the state itself, so the Bombay High Court should be renamed as High Court of Maharashtra to maintain uniformity.
The petition also prayed the apex court to consider changing names of other High Courts to reflect the states they lie in.
“The petition has been filed on behalf of a large number of people living and belonging to the State of Maharashtra who take immense pride in their Marathi culture and heritage and are seeking renaming of ‘High Court of Bombay’ to ‘High Court of Maharashtra’ for enforcement of their fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of India, inter alia including the rights contained in Articles 14,19, 21, 29 of the Constitution of India,” says the petition.
The petitioner has further stated that on July 19, 2016 the High Court (Alternation of Names) Bill, 2016 was introduced in the Parliament of India changing of the names of ‘High Court of Judicature at Bombay as “High Court of Judicature at Mumbai’ and ‘High Court of Judicature at Mumbai” as “High Court of Judicature at Chennai’ respectively, however the Bill lapsed in the Parliament due to lack of consensus between the States.
Thereafter again in the year 2018 fresh demands were made to the Central Government to take steps to reintroduce the bill for renaming the High Courts. However, no positive step has been taken, hence the petitioner approached the Supreme Court.